Tech Time Warp of the Week: Watch Google Recruit for the First Human Colony on Mars

But then there was the time the search giant joined forces with Virgin to put people on Mars.

In April 2008, Google and Virgin unveiled what they called Project Virgle. "Earth has issues, and it's time humanity got started on a Plan B," read the project's website. "So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars."

It was billed as "the adventure of many lifetimes." But it was also an April Fool's joke.

>'Earth has issues, and it's time humanity got started on a Plan B.'

And what an April Fool's joke it was. You can watch Googlers Sergey and Larry pitch their extra-planetary commune in the video above, and Branson gives it a go below. That April 1, Branson even pitched Virgle from the stage of the massive CTIA mobile conference in Las Vegas – and about 6,000 people took him completely seriously.

According to the pitch, the Virgle team would select a group of roughly 20 Earthlings to join Branson and Brin on a one-way mission to the Red Planet, while Larry stayed in Mountain View to take care of Google's search empire and ready himself for a possible mission to Jupiter. The initial screening process involved a multiple-choice questionnaire that asked things along the lines of: "What would you do if you had to wait up to 40 minutes for a response to email?" The answers were "die," "rejoice," choose my words carefully," and "What's email?"

You were also asked to supply a 30-second video of yourself. From there, the Virgle team would short-list applicants and begin a more extensive vetting process. After all, the Virglers would be spending the rest of their lives together in the Virgle Plex, with low broadband rates and the possibility their lives "might be extinguished in a fiery instant of catastrophic technological malfunction." Call it The Real World: Mars meets Survivor.

The funny thing is that the joke wasn't far from reality. Companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic and grassroots projects like Copenhagen Suborbitals and Mars One are now pushing into space. Mars One is even trying to fill missions to the fourth planet from the Sun through an online application process. More than 200,000 people applied, and the organization recently announced it has whittled it down to 705 remaining hopefuls.

Most of us will never see the Curiosity rover in person. But at least we can test out our Mars-compatibility quotient by taking the Virgle quiz. I was judged "distressingly normal" and better suited for life on the Blue Planet. How about you?